Wednesday, 23 November 2011

I don't have anything profound to say today and I don't have any marvellous photos to share but I thought I would let you know that I have finished my fox quilt and it is now hanging on the wall in the kitchen looking deliciously wintery.

This time I'm just following the zig-zags with fairly large and not very even running stitch but I'm enjoying sitting under it in the evenings while I work and I fully intend for it to be finished by Christmas even if it is a few years late!

Thursday, 3 November 2011

I've been really enjoying reading Emma's posts about making winter and following her links.

I'm not sure how I feel about the winter. I like the idea of cosy time in front of the fire with my knitting or sewing and obviously Christmas is always something to look forward to, but I don't like the cold, dark evenings and being on a diet puts paid to enjoying lovely wintery comfort foods.

But as my contribution to making winter this week I thought I would show you some of my wintery "doings".

I can't really claim that knitting socks is a winter activity as it is something I seem to be addicted to doing throughout the year - but actually WEARING those hand knit socks is definitely an autumn/winter pleasure. I finished my second pair of Tadpoles using the gorgeous hand-dyed yarn that Quinn sent me in the new year and I really love them.

I also cast on two pairs of socks last month as part of Socktoberfest - my favourites are my autumn leaves socks made using this pattern.

I have to admit that the gorgeous yarn was initially intended for this beautiful scarf - but I did a few inches and realised that there was no way I was going to actually be able to face knitting a whole scarf - the pattern just wasn't interesting enough. Then I cast on a different pair of leaf socks and did the first few rows of the pattern before deciding I didn't like it either. Moogsmum and I have discussed this and I have come to the conclusion that I am an extremely fussy knitter - I have to absolutely LOVE the process of knitting the pattern to be able to do it and if I don't love it it's just not going to happen.

I've also cast on some embossed leaves to sort-of-knit-along with Lesley - except that I have done one pattern repeat and Lesley has nearly finished her first sock! She is a demon-knitter!!

But back to making winter........... Dot persuaded me back into the sewing room the other weekend after far too long a break from it and one of the projects I resurrected was my fox quilt from Syko's lovely book. This was a quilt that I started at the beginning of the year when I was still deeply depressed and struggling to get through each day and once I had pieced the front it just lay neglected because I didn't have any bondaweb left for the trees and it was just too much effort to go and get some.

But I love how it looks now and I'm enjoying hand-quilting very naive stars all over it - I have a horrible feeling it is going to pucker as I didn't have much spray baste to fix the layers but so far it seems to be going ok.

I'm a real humbug about Halloween and never really get into the spirit of it and wouldn't have even carved pumpkins this year if a neighbour hadn't donated two pumpkins to me on Monday because her grown up daughters no longer wanted them for their parties. So one got carved for Fred and put out on the front wall to welcome the trick-or-treaters.

Daisy went to a party straight from school and came back dressed like this - fortunately that's a spare school shirt that doesn't really fit! And Fred got dressed up in Gina's dare-devil outfit to open the door to give out sweets.

I am quietly promising myself that next year I will get myself organised to take Fred out trick-or-treating too as it is something I have never really done with him and the girls are now old enough to be organising their own activities or not doing anything at all if that's what they want.

And today I used the other pumpkin to make myself some delicious pumpkin and cumin soup for lunch and it was so tasty I ate the lot.

I have been struggling with my diet since our holiday but I've lost 2 stone 5lbs over the last 6-7 months and need to get focussed again to lose the next 3 stone to get to my dream weight. It's getting harder as the novelty has worn off and the children keep baking gorgeous cakes and biscuits and delicious apple crumbles. But my Slimming World leader gave me a pile of magazines to hold the other night that weighed 2 stone to remind me that I really didn't want to put it back on so I won't be comfort eating - much as I'd like to!

Finally I thought I'd show you the beautiful cushion that Dot made for me using a tapestry pattern from the Cath Kidston Stitch book